Taxonomy term

cretaceous

Late Cretaceous skies might have been more crowded than previously thought. Until recently, scientists thought the dearth of pterosaur fossils found from the Late Cretaceous meant that the flying reptiles were in decline before the catastrophic end of the Mesozoic. But the recent discovery in Morocco of several new pterosaur species suggests this unique branch of reptiles may have been thriving just before the end-Cretaceous extinction.

Triceratops and its cousin Torosaurus are not hard to tell apart. Both horned dinosaurs had a giant bony frill that rose up behind the head, but Torosaurus’ frill was much longer and was adorned with giant holes that were covered by a thin layer of protein called keratin. Yet Triceratops and Torosaurus may have been more alike than scientists realized: New research suggests that the two animals were actually the same species, with Torosaurus being the adult version of Triceratops.

Modern birds range across the color spectrum from brilliant blue to Big Bird yellow to vibrant vermillion, so it stands to reason that feathered dinosaurs shared these colorful traits. And in fact, few paleontologists have doubted that dinosaurs were multihued beasts. But until a couple of recent finds in China, they had no real evidence. Two new studies detail the findings, which researchers say also resolve the debate over whether birds descended from dinosaurs.